BAGACUM
BAGACUM (
Bavay), a town of the Nervii, a Belgic people.
In the text of Ptolemy it is generally Baganum, which is an error. Ptolemy only mentions this town of the Nervii, from which circumstance, and its being the centre of so many roads, D'Anville concludes that it was the chief town of the Nervii.
The following Roman roads met here: from Turnacum (
Tournai), Camaracum (
Cambrai), Durocortorum (
Rheims), Atuatuca Tungrorum (
Tongern).
The remains of two other roads are nearly entire: one to Tablae (
Ablas), in the Insula Batavorum, passing by
Mons and
Antwerp; and the other to Mugusta Veromanduorum (
St. Quentin), called the
Chaussée de Brunehaut. Bast (
Recueil d'Antiquités, &c.) says that eight Roman roads met at Bavay.
An inscription was found at
Bavay in 1716, which records the visit of Tiberius to Gallia before he was emperor, from which we may conclude that the place existed then, though the name is not mentioned in the inscription. (Walckenaer,
Géographie, &c. p. 473.)
This seems to be the visit to Gallia mentioned by Velleius (2.104). Bagacum, under the empire, was a flourishing place, but it is supposed to have been destroyed by the northern invaders about the close of the fourth century of our aera, and it is now a small town. Many Roman remains have been disinterred in modern times.
The site of the circus
[p. 1.369]may still be traced within the limits of
Bavay; and subterranean vaults of Roman construction, and mosaics, have also been discovered. The Romans brought water to
Bavay from
Florésies, on the opposite side of the
Sambre, a distance of 10 miles.
The water is said to have been brought under the bed of the
Sambre. [
G.L]
